The United States Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Alabama highlighted the importance of an individual’s “incorrigibility” and the prospect of “irreparable corruption” when weighing possible life sentencing for juveniles convicted of homicide. In this review, we study research in multiple content areas spanning homicide recidivism, life-course-persistent or career criminality, and psychopathology and incorrigibility that bears relevance to the risk assessment of juvenile homicide offenders. A well-developed corpus of research and scholarship in these domains documents the severe, lifelong behavioral impairments of the most violent delinquents. In contrast to studies of non-offender student samples and behaviors that bear no ecological validity to juvenile homicide, the research covered herein emanates from epidemiological surveys, birth cohort studies, large-scale prospective longitudinal studies, and correctional studies including homicide offenders and appropriate control groups of other serious delinquents. A rich research foundation in the social, behavioral, and forensic science informs relevant, reliable, and valid forensic assessments of future criminal deviance and incorrigibility in juvenile homicide offenders.

美国最高法院在米勒诉阿拉巴马州案中的裁决在权衡对被判犯有杀人罪的少年可能判处的无期徒刑时，强调了个人“不可救药”的重要性和“无法弥补的腐败”的前景。在这篇综述中，我们研究了多个内容领域的研究，包括杀人再犯、生命历程持续或职业犯罪，以及与少年杀人犯风险评估相关的精神病理学和不可救药。这些领域的一个完善的研究和学术资料库记录了最暴力的犯罪者的严重的、终生的行为障碍。与对青少年凶杀没有生态有效性的非犯罪学生样本和行为的研究相比，本文涵盖的研究来自流行病学调查、出生队列研究、大规模前瞻性纵向研究、和惩教研究，包括杀人犯和其他严重犯罪者的适当对照组。社会、行为和法医科学方面的丰富研究基础为青少年杀人犯未来犯罪越轨和不可救药的相关、可靠和有效的法医评估提供了信息。